All Things Beautiful

The Perfect Merge

2009-02-15T23:35:00.006+08:00

An enlightened case of opposites attracting, Herakut's artistic symbiosis is finally brought to the hardbound page. Title: Herakut, The Perfect Merge. Release Date: April 2009.

Love/AIDS Day

2008-01-22T21:47:00.000+08:00

(AUCTION)RED is the result of Damien Hirst's efforts to raise money for Bono's RED campaign. The auction pieces, contributed by Hirst and other contemporary artists like Murakami and Noble/Webster, go on exhibit February 4. The auction, hosted by Sotheby's in New York, has been scheduled to coincide with Valentine's Day.

Lot 2
DAMIEN HIRST
BEAUTIFUL RED SPIN PAINTING
600,000—800,000 USD
diameter 84 in.

Lot 23
MARC QUINN
RED SPHINX
250,000—350,000 USD
27 5/8 x 25 1/4 x 21 5/8 in.

Lot 53
DAMIEN HIRST
LOVE YOU
1,000,000—1,500,000 USD
72 x 108 in.

Lot 3
TAKASHI MURAKAMI
RED FLOWER BALL (3-D)
500,000—700,000 USD
diameter 59 in

Lot 48
RICHARD PRINCE
UNTITLED (THE VELVETS)
700,000—900,000 USD
80 x 120 in.

Lot 6
TIM NOBLE & SUE WEBSTER
METAL FUCKING RATS WITH HEART SHAPED TAIL
80,000—120,000 USD
sculpture: 22 1/4 x 25 1/4 x 7 1/2 in., light projector: 5 3/4 x 5 x 7 7/8 in.

Lot 42
FRED TOMASELLI
RED BIRD
70,000—90,000 USD
24 x 24 in.

Wallflowers

2007-11-03T20:42:00.000+08:00

Working with the idea that walls make up the largest decorative surface in any living space, Barcelona-based Mira Entu Interior's vinyl stencils provide a refreshing alternative to canvas and frame. Offered in a wide variety of crisp, contemporary designs, these large-format, pre-cut materials are easy to apply and maintain. And with 24 colors to choose from and customizable text components, they can be used to create uniquely personal spaces.

And if you'd like a more interactive experience, British designer Jenny Wilkinson's Wallpaper-by-Numbers is a fun way to color your interiors. Designed to appeal to adults and children alike, these artsy wallpaper panels and sectional wall strips come in a variety of clever scenes that can be filled in with paint, crayons, markers, or colored pencils. With these ultimate DIY wall treatments, the fun is in the process. You can create some very special memories—with colorful keepsakes—of time spent with your family or your friends creating your own personalized murals.

Tim Noble & Sue Webster

2007-08-04T09:15:00.000+08:00

In their garbage series, British sculptors/pranksters/provocateurs Tim Noble and Sue Webster portray themselves—and the whole lot of us—as creatures of voracious consumption and self-indulgent waste. Through the innovative manipulation of light, shadow, and months' worth of their own trash, Noble and Webster project honest interpretations of the modern world as they see it, turning the everyday ugly into the constructive extraordinary.

George Tsypin

2007-01-27T13:18:00.000+08:00

For most of us, the maximalist landscapes of George Tsypin's set design dare occur only in our wildest, most bizarre (and most likely pharmaceutically-enhanced) dreams.
So much larger than life, his sets loom above the action at centerstage as superlative monuments to theatrical spectacle and grandeur.

Martin Pierce Hardware

2006-12-27T04:05:00.000+08:00

Inspired by natural forms, sculptor-designer Martin Pierce's first collection of bronze cast hardware and cabinet pulls adds substance and beauty to some of the most utilized but often overlooked areas of furniture and interiors. Using the ancient lost-wax casting method, the British-born, Los Angeles-based furniture-maker (in collaboration with his wife Anne) crafts pieces of exceptional detail and diverse texture.

Above: the trumpet flower, dragonfly, sycamore leaf, fiddlehead, and mushroom cabinet pulls from the Flora and Animal lines.
Below: matching heroic door pulls from the Hedgerow line (inspired by the English gardens of Pierce's youth).

Planning 2007

2006-12-27T03:38:00.000+08:00

Where did 2006 go?!? Having missed the opportunity to shop for a decent wall calendar at the beginning of this year (as I was up to my eyeballs in work and didn't even realize it was 2006 until mid-February), I ended up preemptively purchasing my 2007 calendar on a work-sponsored shopping spree at the bookstore last month. Although it's quite cute (the TeNeues Retromodern calendar with patterns by Susan Eslick, which at least three people think is very me), I'm still on the prowl for something a bit more unique. Two possibilities from the MoMA online store:

Phases of the Moon
A modern and rather literal interpretation of the traditional moon phase calendar, this large-format wall-hanger tracks the waxing and waning of the moon in elegant silver arcs. Usually available at the MoMA online store, but it appears to be out of stock at the moment.

Jumping Point
Colorful and efficient, this interactive calendar allows you to mark the passage of days (and highlight occasions) by punching out each specific date's dot to reveal the color underneath.

Gifts for the Technophile

2006-12-12T18:40:00.001+08:00

Bringing us one step closer to the cool, isolationist dystopia of a Gibsonian future, today's personal gear is all about multi-tasking on the move.

Oakley's Thump Sunglasses ($229) integrate fashion, shade, and sound in one package—apart from the standard flip-up lenses and ergonomic design, the Thump stores up to 120 songs on 512 megs of memory, plays six hours of sound (from a single charge) on adjustable Mylar speakers, and comes with a USB cable for efficient file transfer (Windows and Mac compatible). So I suppose it's only a matter of time until they come up with a version that allows you to channel the mirror-eyed Molly and watch video on the inner surface of the lenses.

And keeping you lean, green, and mobile, the tri-petal Solio Solar Power Charger ($100) stores eight to ten hours of solar power and works with mobile phones, PDAs, MP3s, digital cameras, gaming devices, and GPS units. Very new technology may require adaptors, but these will probably be the same as those required for standard chargers.

And on the homefront, Bang and Olufsen's A9 Keyring ($80) doubles as a miniature remote control that extends the "smart house" integration of the Beo 4. Beautifully and ergonomically designed (like all other B&O products), the A9 allows the user to turn the radio, TV, and lights off/on with one button press as they leave or arrive at their home.

Jeroen Verhoeven + Demakersvan

2006-12-12T17:19:00.000+08:00

Expected to sell for up to US$60,000 at the Sotheby's December 15 auction of "Important 20th Century Design" pieces in New York, Jeroen Verhoeven's Cinderella table is a creative gem among thousands of attempts by young industrial designers to fuse historical inspiration and modern technology.

While most furniture designers today are using computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAM) to create perfected cookie-cutter pieces, Verhoeven and his group Demakersvan ("Themakersof," composed of twin brother Joep Verhoeven and Design Academy schoolmate Judith de Graauw) use CAD-CAM to construct beautiful, complex designs that convey the feel of old-school craftmanship even as they push the limits of the technology to generate bold, new forms.

Based on the aesthetic of 17th and 18th century Dutch furniture, the seemingly freeform Cinderella table is composed of 57 individual slices (a total of 741 layers) of birch plywood, designed, manufactured, and assembled via CAD-CAM and then finished by hand. Other Cinderella tables in the series (of 20) have already been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Despite their success in the art world, Verhoeven and company have said that they do not wish for their work to be locked away in museums forever. They are currently working on having many of their pieces, such as their popular How to Plant a Fence (designed with the aid of Dutch bobbin-lace artisans), manufactured more inexpensively in India so as to make their work accessible to the general public.

The Tesla Roadster 100

2006-11-20T01:06:00.000+08:00

0 to 60 in 4 seconds, on BATTERIES. The new Tesla Roadster is 100% electric, traveling up to 400 km per charge and topping out at 210 km/hour. And it's pretty. Finally, an environmentally friendly car you can take on a date! Now if only Bush would sign the Kyoto Accord...

Su Blackwell

2006-11-13T05:39:00.000+08:00

"I undergo repetitive labour-intensive processes that often involve sewing, knotting, folding and cutting, intimate actions that reveal the hand at work. My methods of working are a meditative process, which can develop into an intrinsic type of ritual, whereby I take the familiar and by a matter-of-fact manner move it towards the fantastic."

Delightful and delicate, yet astonishing in impact and profundity, Su Blackwell’s intricate work towers above the imagination as flowering flights of fantasy spun from our favorite bedtime stories. From the visual feast that is Alice’s paper tea party, to the ethereal flight of butterflies from apparel to air, Su’s choice and manipulation of each medium reveals her exceptional capability as an artist and, more significantly, her rare understanding of the organic potential of the most common materials.

Hera

2006-11-07T05:27:00.000+08:00

"In my pieces I show the other side of being a woman. So sometimes they really are sexy, but most of the time they are just beautiful mommies pushing their shopping trolleys, with small breasts and chunky thighs."

Cautiously optimistic dystopian in approach, street-smart proletarian in execution, the stylized work of Hera—half of the street art duo Herakut—silently and provocatively beckons your attention from the walls of Wiesbaden, Germany. I came across Hera in my new favorite book, Graffiti Woman (by Nicholas Ganz, a.k.a. Keinom, of Graffiti World fame)—precursor/sister to Graffiti Women: Street Art from Five Continents. Swoon's words lend additional street cred to both projects.

Swoon

2006-11-01T21:11:00.000+08:00

Dynamic yet fragile, haunting yet ephemeral, Swoon's street art—intricate, life-sized paper cutouts of both everyday and unusual people—wallpapers the most unlikely corners of New York City.

"To me the beauty with street art has a lot to do with the openness in the spaces in which it is created, in the random elements it is subject to, the decay and the change and impermanence." (Swoon, as interviewed in spectraz.com)

You can read about Swoon and see more of her work at:
* Gammablog (extensive photo collection of Swoon's work)
* Layers of Meaning (short post/article)
* Spectraz (interview)
* KultureFlash (exhibit photos)
* Wikipedia (basic information on the artist)

PHOTOS FROM GAMMABLOG & RES MAGAZINE

Impressionists Revisited

2006-11-01T21:02:00.000+08:00

Up for auction at Sotheby's in New York on the 6th of November: charcoal and pastel Quatre danseuses by Edgar Degas, Les deux bouquets by Marc Chagall, and Nature morte aux fruits et pot de gingembre by Paul Cezanne. The Degas is expected to go for $250,000 to $350,000, the Chagall for between $1,400,000 to $1,800,000, and the Cezanne for a whopping $28,000,000 to $35,000,000. Wow.

From my hard drive to yours...

2006-10-24T14:51:00.000+08:00

I suspect the other half of my brain devised this blog just to dispose of all those photos that don't merit their own folder and end up, slowly degenerating to obscurity, in My Documents.

Steven Strait

So HOT. So talented. So damn young (suddenly, I want to be twenty years old too). He always get the best screen names—you may remember him as Warren Peace from Sky High and Luke Falcon in Undiscovered. In his new movie The Covenant, he plays Caleb Danvers, a prep-school teenager with supernatural powers. Apart from being an actor, he also fronts the band Tribe.

Monica Bellucci

Because beautiful photos of beautiful women shouldn't go to waste.